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One day a few weeks ago, I was waiting for a delivery. The package I was expecting was an important one. Rarely do I write down the tracking number when I place an order. This package was different. Not only had I written down the tracking number, but I had gone to the FedEx website and entered it. I knew that my package was to be delivered by 3:00 that afternoon.
I had been away from the study for most of the afternoon. When I returned, I again entered the tracking number. The screen indicated that my package had been delivered, yet there was no package on the desk. I started looking around the church office. Janet had not seen a package. Brian had not seen a package. I checked all the doors to the church to make sure that the delivery person had not left the package sitting outside one of them. I saw nothing. When asked again, neither Janet nor Brian still had any recollection of a package being delivered to the church. The time to call the good people at FedEx had arrived.
This is where the story starts to spiral out of control. After weaving my way through the automated answering system, I finally found myself talking to a human being who promptly transferred me to someone who could help me. Little did I realize then what wishful thinking it was to think that there was someone at FedEx who could, in fact, help me. Please don’t get me wrong, both of the people were very nice, polite and apologetic.
What did FedEx have to apologize for? Well as it turns out they had delivered my package to the wrong address. The customer service lady that I spoke with contacted the driver who made the delivery. She got a description of the house where he had made the delivery and passed it on to me with a word of caution. Be careful, there are dogs in the yard. I went and found the house. There were dogs in the yard -- big dogs. So big, in fact, that I decided to just stay in the car. A woman came out of the house and onto the porch. I explained to her the situation. She looked around the porch -- no package. She called her husband. No delivery was made before he went to work. She said that she was sorry that she could not be more help. I thanked her for her effort. She had nothing to apologize for and she had been more help than the people who were supposed to deliver the package to me.
It was time to call FedEx one more time. My question had changed from where, to why -- as in: Why in the world would anybody deliver there instead of here? Did the driver not notice the box in front of the building with 2412 on it? Why have the drivers been able to find 2412 Ball Camp-Byington Road all the other times and not this time? As you might expect, these questions received no answer. Polite sympathy, yes; answers, no.
I was also assured that I would be able to get my money back for the cost of the package. While that piece of information was offered in a most courteous and professional way, it took about thirty-six years off of my life. I was an eight-year-old again. “I don’t want my money back, I want my package! Do you know what was in that package? Tickets were in the package; tickets to a ball game that is going to be played two days from now.” Again, I was offered courteous and professional sympathy but no solution.
The tickets were gone, but I could not give up. I called Melissa. She was the person who answered the phone at the place where I bought the tickets. She said she would take care of it. How, I wondered. As she was explaining what she was going to do, the doorbell rang. “Who could that be at this hour?” Night had fallen, the day was gone and so had everyone else. I put Melissa on hold and went to see who was at the door.
My hope returned. Standing at the door was the lady from the house where the tickets had been delivered. Could it be that . . . no, that would be too much to hope for. But it wasn’t too much to hope for. I opened the door and she handed me the tickets. She had found them in her yard. She had actually gone out and looked for them with a flashlight. She gave my boys and me a wonderful gift. I thought they were lost, but she had found them.
As I ponder the remaining days of Advent and the approaching birth of our Savior, I pray for that same sense expectancy. I want to anxiously wait and watch for Christ to be born anew. I want to want His arrival more than anything else in the world. I want to look and long and yearn for His coming as if my life and my eternity depend on His coming. I want to seek and to knock until I find, and until my life is as open as it possibly can be to Him. Would it be unseemly to frantically and desperately search, knock and call until I find Him or, more likely, He finds me?
Strange thing about those tickets, they were in the yard in front of that house all the time. I did not get out of my car to look for them. Those dogs were really big. I did not think it would do any good. The yard was covered with leaves. I saw no signs of a FedEx package. I did not seek and did not find.
The Christ child that is about to be born is all around us and in us. Signs of His presence come to us each day. In the lives of people making their way in this world, we see Him at work, taking on flesh and dwelling among us still -- Immanuel. Surely, if we seek Him we will find Him in these waiting days of Advent and in all the days to come now and forevermore. Seek Him, Find Him and know the wonder of His love.
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